Is Trance/Ambient on its way to becoming the New Prog?

that's a really original theory but i have an even more mindblowing one RADIOHEAD ARE THE NEW PROG!!!

"Welcome again my freinds to the drone that never ends, I'm so glad you could virtually attend, warp inside, warp inside." sez the paisley-painted robo-barker as he chucks you down a bottomless mindshaft with the walls covered with electrically calibrated knives tuned to chime specific tones as the slice into the flesh of the victims. Why? To show you how deep the pain goes.
And thats just track 1...or at least the part that can fit on CD 1.

Was there ever even a question that Radiohead were prog??

Radiohead = often arty
arty doesn't necessarily = proggy

This is not to say Radiohead won't be (or hasn't already been) adopted into prog canon, though a lot of things adopted into prog canon (Bitches Brew, Rite of Spring, Rubber Soul, etc) is stuff not really *stereotypically* prog.

Extra credit bonus question: Does New Age music fill the niche once occupied by the Jethro Tull/Gentle Giant Rennaisance Prog (instead of the Yes/ELP sci-fi-oriented Space Prog)? And if So, which form of electronica will replace New Age?

that's a really original theory but i have an even more mindblowing one RADIOHEAD ARE THE NEW PROG!!!
Mmmmmm...i dunno...Radiohead my be pretentious, and their music may be slow...but theres something about it that different.
I guess because Radiohead sound like they're on Thorazine.
To be a True PROG jerk you have to be a coked-out overachiver.
I predict after enough of the Electronica crowd (especially the Trance/Ambient folks) get too warped by hallucinogens and Exstasy to function...they'll all get coked up and it'll be Tales from the Topographic Oceans time all over ahain.
Thats what happened in the late 60s. And those who do not remember the past are forced to reimpliment it using more up to date synthesizer technology.

Does trance even have the ambition to pretension?

To answer myself: Perfecto Fluoro and letting Host of the Seraphim play through while calling it a "mix."

ethan's point is perhaps that you're a tad late in this observation? just a little over a decade though.

Trance doesn't have the elitism regarding musicianship of prog.

but it does have its -own- elitism. Once you reach name-recognition stage (a special feat in itself with names like "Dave Clark" and "Paul van Dyk"), and you're moving enough units, and getting paid thousands a gig, and mixing Dead Can Dance into your set, and wearing the proper shades on album covers and with the emphasis on set-length (3+ hour epics) and technique and such.

Dare is your problem with trance or with DJs? eg. I could nitpick and say that Dave Clarke is by no means a trance DJ, but since what you're saying probably applies to the supastar DJs of any genre there wouldn't be much point (in terms of supastar trance DJs Paul Van Dyk is the great suvivah, and even then he's weathered the storm with diminished popularity. The consistently big DJs are the ones who act as weathervanes, pointing which ever way clubland is leading - thus everyone talks about prog house, deep tech-funk etc etc. blah blah.

This whole argument was relevant BTW when Sasha & Digweed's "Northern Exposure" compilation came out and for pretty obvious reasons (the album literally sounded like Pink Floyd on a combo of ecstacy and sleeping pills) but it has very little application these days when even prog house is very tracky.

Plus, comparing anything to prog these days is sort of beyond meaningless now that it's reflexively done to any music that even vaguely supports the comparison. USE OTHER WORDS PLEASE.

ethan's point is perhaps that you're a tad late in this observation? just a little over a decade though.
Trance-style electronica has only been mainstream for a few years. And yes, I know it hasn't progged out...yet. My question is "is the progging of electronica inevitable?"
Trance doesn't have the elitism regarding musicianship of prog.
Not yet it doesn't. But I suspect as soon as the drugs change the music changes.

My question is "is the progging of electronica inevitable?"

What, the progging again? I don't mean to offend Lord Custos, but you give the impression that you're blithely disregarding 15 years of musical history. No, electronica hasn't had as much overground success in the US as in the UK, but since Sasha & Digweed were pretty much the backbone of trance's spread in the US I'm sure listeners are well acquainted with proggy trance.

Not yet it doesn't. But I suspect as soon as the drugs change the music changes.

Yes. I believe this is when trance fans got into hard house. Do * any* drugs encourage people to like *proggy* dance music? I thought a taste for it was an implicit corrolary of a disavowal of drugs - at least of the party-going kind.

Do *any* drugs encourage people to like *proggy* dance music?
Cocaine + Ecstasy? I dunno. Thats what *I'm* asking.
Its not that I dread Electronica in its myriad forms finally killing off Rock. I dread the day when Rock finally coughs up blood and keels over completely dead...and the only thing on the radio is...NOT good Electronica, but a boring progified (read: smug, boring, overindulgent, tedious, re-heated, nothing new to say knock-off version of) Neo-post-psuedo-electronica that has been gelded, domesticated and rendering inert by snobs.

20 years of cliches abt prog (hey it was a "bloated" "dinosaur" you know!!) are way worse than prog itself ever was

I wish I could agree with that.

Natch, I completely do agree w/that. I phail to see any connection between trance/ambient & prog rock. Metal & dance musick possibly, (all encompassing music scene which means that u can avoid Xposure to ANY OTHER FORM OV MUSICK - "hey, I like black metal, nu metal and stoner rock/hey i like progressive trance, gabba and hard house LOOK HOW BROADMINDED I AM!!!") but not prog. As far as I can see, prog is & will prob. remain this little underground self-release scene and nothing will be the new prog. "New Prog" = stick with which to beat guitar group musicians who get fancy ideas above their station forever and ever and ever I phear, I mean I remember NME accusing Danse Society of being "New Prog" back in days of Sinker yore, or perhaps even previously MERELY BECAUSE THEY FEATURED KEYBOARDS!!!! (btw they sux0r3d, cuz their singer was so bad he wasn't equaled for tunelessnes 'till bbby glssp came along) blah blah blaaarghh etc

i just seem to remember "progressive house" getting compared to pink floyd and the like in the press as early as '92.

danse society also had a trumpet norman

(ps it was not me that said that btw)

I do not remember thee trumpet (+ IIRC the interview was really badly written = k-klearly not by M.S. now you are all embarrased, eh?) I do remember their cover of "2000 light years from home", which wasn't too bad apart from the flat singing. It had a nice sleeve. I may still have it somewhere.

"I dread the day when Rock finally coughs up blood and keels over completely dead...and the only thing on the radio is...NOT good Electronica, but a boring progified (read: smug, boring, overindulgent, tedious, re-heated, nothing new to say knock-off version of) Neo-post-psuedo-electronica that has been gelded, domesticated and rendering inert by snobs. "

Luckily then prog and non-prog dance music have both always co-existed in good and bad variants - the first wave of prog house occurred simultaneously to 'ardkore's rising star. Just as we would never assume that all rock everywhere would follow a similar path, it's not very helpful to consider dance music as a monolithic creature.

trumpet = i am thinking of dislocation dance

Huge sweeping panoramas of sound. NO. That's space rock. Long meandering tracks with outer-spacey themes. NO. That's space rock. Synths, Synths and More Synths. NO. Thats sp... zzzzzzzzzz

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